


Of Scientists and Saints

by sciencebutch



Series: Tumblr Prompts [10]
Category: Marvel
Genre: Gen, SCIENCE!, bruce is an asshole what else is new, tm - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-14
Updated: 2019-03-14
Packaged: 2019-11-17 18:29:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18104024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sciencebutch/pseuds/sciencebutch
Summary: Bruce has been awake for twenty-four hours. Steve tells him to go to bed.





	Of Scientists and Saints

**Author's Note:**

> can he just fukcign sleep

Despite what some people may believe, Bruce is a polite person. He was raised to have manners, gently and patiently by his mother and…less so, by his father. He knows that ignoring someone can be considered rude. Which is why he doesn’t ignore Steve when he walks into the lab.

“Good morning,” he says lightly, still focusing on sending a culture of  _E. coli_  bacteria into heat shock. He doesn’t look up when he greets him, because sure, he may be polite, but he isn’t a  _saint._

“It’s three AM,” Steve says. Which is odd, because Bruce could have sworn it had been three AM when he had woken up from a nightmare and came down to his lab, unable to fall asleep again. He figured that only a few hours had passed, tops.

“No it isn’t.”

“You’ve been in here for almost 24 hours, Dr. Banner.”

“No I haven’t.”

“I can assure you that you have.”

“Even if I have,” which he hasn’t, “it doesn’t matter. Time is relative.” Bruce diverted his focus from the micropipette in his hand, and looked towards Steve. “Have you even ever  _read_  Einstein?”

Steve scrubbed his face with his hand in exasperation. “I’m positive that when Einstein theorized that the speed of light is fixed and unchangeable, and space and time change around it, he didn’t mean that to be an excuse for you to stay up for 24 hours straight, Bruce.”

“So you  _have_  read Einstein,” okay, so maybe Bruce was trying to change the subject, but he really didn’t want to go to sleep. Sleeping meant dreams. Dreams meant nightmares. Nightmares meant a potential Hulk out. Hulking out means hurting people. Hurting people means more nightmares. It was a vicious loop, and he didn’t want to be involved in it anymore, thank you very much.

“That isn’t the point —“ Bruce cut Steve off.

“Why are you awake at three AM, then, if you’re against it so much?”

“Because I care for my teammate and want him to be well-rested.” Now that was strange. People usually didn’t care about him. He didn’t know how to feel about that.

“I don’t really know how to feel about that,” he said. Huh, maybe it had been a while since he had last slept; he wasn’t prone to admitting his feelings unless he was really out of it.

“You don’t have to feel anything. Just go to bed.”

Bruce stood, cleaned his workspace, and went to bed.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr!


End file.
